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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776772">And When the Cutting Was Done</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/nik_knows_nothing/pseuds/nik_knows_nothing'>nik_knows_nothing</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Dissociation, Gen, Imprisonment, Jim "Chief" Hopper Lives, Survival, There is no shame in surviving, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, mentions of past trauma</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:54:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,047</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22776772</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/nik_knows_nothing/pseuds/nik_knows_nothing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Hopper lives.</p>
<p>It's everything after that that takes more getting used to.</p>
<p>(Based on the season 4 trailer, Hopper copes with being interred in a prison camp full of monsters on the other side of the entire world.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And When the Cutting Was Done</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Because we all knew Hopper survived, but how about that trailer, huh? </p>
<p>Title is from "Don't Mess Around With Jim".</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first day is the hardest.</p>
<p>The first day that he wakes up in the cell, it's all a lot of denial, really.</p>
<p>There's a whole lot of <em>this can't be happening</em> and<em> I can't be here</em> and <em>they need me back home, please, God, I can't fucking be here.</em></p>
<p>That will fade, eventually.</p>
<p>Hopper knows how these things go.</p>
<p>He made it through Vietnam without getting into too much trouble (somehow, God only knows how), but one of the other Indiana boys had been in at Hỏa Lò, had talked a lot about the things a body does to survive.</p>
<p>Denial's normal.</p>
<p>Healthy, even. </p>
<p>But it'll go away.</p>
<p>Sooner or later, he knows, he won't be able to bury his head in the sand and pretend it isn't happening, pretend he isn't...<em>here</em>.</p>
<p>Wherever <em>here</em> is.</p>
<p>It's cold.</p>
<p>It's damned cold, like his fingers and toes are going to fall off any second, like each breath is a knife in his lungs.</p>
<p><em>Could be worse</em>, Hopper thinks, walking the perimeter of his cell and counting out the paces. <em>Could be hot</em>.</p>
<p>Hot and humid.</p>
<p>God, but he'd really lose his mind then, wouldn't he?</p>
<p>The cell is ten paces by fifteen paces, which doesn't mean a whole lot.</p>
<p>Means he can sit down with his legs straight out in front of him, or lie on his back with his knees bent, or he can stand.</p>
<p>Those are his options. </p>
<p><em>You handle what you can</em>, the other guy from Hawkins had said over a beer one night. <em>All you can do is handle the things you can control, and don't waste time worrying about all the other things. </em></p>
<p>
  <em>Nothing you can do, for all those other things. </em>
</p>
<p>But Hopper worries anyhow.</p>
<p>He can't not worry.</p>
<p>It's sort of in his nature.</p>
<p>The whole first day, he paces the cell, thinks about the roar of the turbine when he threw the Ruskie into the gears, thinks about the shriek of those alien lizard things that he swears he can still hear, thinks about Joyce's face—</p>
<p>
  <em>No, not that. </em>
</p>
<p>Thinks about El—</p>
<p><em>No, not that, either</em>.</p>
<p>He can't think about that.</p>
<p>Not yet.</p>
<p>Because dammit, <em>dammit</em>, he was supposed to die, supposed to go out nice and clean and heroic, he wasn't supposed to be here.</p>
<p>He wasn't supposed to have to figure out what the hell he's supposed to do now. It's not fair.</p>
<p>
  <em>Life's not fair, Jim, you idiot. </em>
</p>
<p>Hopper paces his cell, and he catches glimpses of faces in the cells around his own, pale and frightened and starved too thin.</p>
<p>Doesn't make for an inspiring sight, if he's being honest.</p>
<p>
  <em>Not the sort of thing you want to see on the other side of the bars.</em>
</p>
<p>Two guards come by, after he's been pacing a few hours, and one of them says something that makes the other laugh.</p>
<p><em>Russian</em>.</p>
<p>They're speaking Russian.</p>
<p>Why not, right? At this point?</p>
<p>But the guard says something, slams the butt of his rifle into the grating on Hopper's cell, just to see if he jumps.</p>
<p>He doesn't.</p>
<p>The guard scowls, spits a few more words in Russian, and then they move on, and the other one laughs again.</p>
<p>How long has he been here?</p>
<p>It feels like no time, like the turbine and the bunker were all just yesterday.</p>
<p>But the cuts and scrapes on his arms and face are old, bruises yellowed and fading, all the wounds halfway to being healed.</p>
<p>Hopper paces his cell and focuses on keeping his breathing steady.</p>
<p>In, out, in again.</p>
<p>His ribs still ache where that jackbooted thug about caved in his whole ribcage.</p>
<p>The bones still creak with each breath, and he feels out the limits, takes small, shallow breaths.</p>
<p>"You are looking for way out," says a voice from the cell across the way, weak and thin and heavily accented. </p>
<p>Hopper leans against the grating and looks across the narrow walkway.</p>
<p>The other man has a pair of broken glasses perched on a broken nose, and he looks like Alexei and also like that crackpot Murray and also a bit like Will Byers.</p>
<p>Small, weak, too badly beaten to really bother caring anymore.</p>
<p>He sees Hopper looking, and his torn mouth curls into a bloody smile.</p>
<p>"Is useless," he says, and shrugs. "There is no way."</p>
<p>"Thanks for the pep talk, pal," Hopper says.</p>
<p>Somewhere down the line, a guard snaps something in Russian that makes the older man shrink back from the bars, hunching back in the cell until his face is swallowed by the shadows again.</p>
<p>Hopper resumes his pacing.</p>
<p>Ten by fifteen.</p>
<p>The dimensions of his world now, he guesses.</p>
<p>
  <em>There's always a way out. </em>
</p>
<p>God, what he wouldn't give for a smoke right around now.</p>
<p>He paces until his legs are starting to ache from the cold and from the strain of disuse, and then he sits with his back against the wall and stares out into the walkway.</p>
<p>Somewhere far away, someone is screaming.</p>
<p>Could be that they'll come for him, sooner or later.</p>
<p>Not like he has much to tell them, and probably not that much they don't already know.</p>
<p>But it could be that they'll come and ask him some questions anyhow.</p>
<p><em>James Hopper,</em> he thinks, an echo of old training. <em>First lieutenant, 17285642</em>.</p>
<p>He knows how these things are done.</p>
<p>There's a protocol to be followed, an exchange of information, a series of questions and answers.</p>
<p>
  <em>James Hopper. First lieutenant. 17285642.</em>
</p>
<p>Hopper leans his head back against the concrete wall, closes his eyes and doesn't let himself think about the tunnels, about the hole in the world, about how El had made him promise that he'd be safe, that he'd be careful, how he'd <em>promised</em> her—</p>
<p>
  <em>Better me than you, kid. </em>
</p>
<p>It's alright.</p>
<p>
  <em>Been in worse spots than this, everything'll be just fine. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It'll all be alright, just wait and see. </em>
</p>
<p>The first day is the hardest.</p>
<p>He still believes there's a way out.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>He's sixteen years old, sitting under the bleachers and wishing he'd bailed when he had a chance.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The couple on the bleachers, they've been arguing for what feels like forever, and he only wanted to sneak a quick smoke, he didn't ask to have a front row seat to all this drama. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He takes a drag off his cigarette, listens to the guy screaming that the girl ought to have a little more trust, she doesn't need to be following him around all the time, and who the hell does she think she is, anyhow, his mother</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The girl's just as loud, and she's screaming that she wouldn't have to check in on him all the time if she hadn't caught him last night with Mandy Freaking Brockovich, and is he kidding with that shit? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Girl's got a point, he thinks, and wonders if he could get back to homeroom without either of them noticing. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Probably not. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The guy yells something else about how he doesn't have to sit here and take this, stomps off down the bleachers and back towards the classrooms on the edge of the field. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The girl hisses something he can't make out, and then she's stomping down the bleachers, and this is his chance to make a break for it—</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He ducks around the edge of the bleachers and almost runs right smack into Joyce Sawyer. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Shit, he says, and she blinks. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Guess you heard all that, she says, and he pretends not to notice that her eye makeup's gone all drippy. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Didn't mean to, he says, and she sighs. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She sighs, looks between his face and the cigarette in his hand, and then rolls her eyes and holds out her hand. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Don't suppose you've got any extra? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>They sit side by side under the bleachers, passing the one cigarette back and forth, and he doesn't ask her what's going on between her and Lonnie, and she doesn't yell at him for eavesdropping, so it's alright.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I'm Joyce, she says, when they've burned the cigarette down to nothing more than a stub. Joyce Sawyer, I think you're in my English class. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jim Hopper, he says. Yeah, I think that's right.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She nods, squints across the field to where her boyfriend disappeared.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I love him, she says, like it's the same conversation. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He grinds out the cigarette butt under his heel.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Okay, he says. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She shrugs. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>But I think, she says. I think I'm probably going to dump him. Makes sense, right? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He doesn't know the answer. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Okay, he says again. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She looks down at his shoes, up at his face.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Well, thanks for the smoke, she says, and he says, No problem. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She leaves, and he watches her go, and Joyce and Lonnie break up on Tuesday and get back together again on Friday. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>On Monday, he goes out to the bleachers, and she's just sitting there, waiting, and he almost smiles.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He's sixteen years old, and he thinks life could be a lot worse.</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The thirty-seventh day is the hardest. </p>
<p>He knows about the demogorgon, by now.</p>
<p>
  <em>Demogorgon, demo-dog?  </em>
</p>
<p><em>Should've paid better attention when the Henderson kid was spelling it all out</em>.</p>
<p>Either way, the Russians have got one.</p>
<p>Somewhere way down below, beneath their feet, down the rickety stairs that he only sees when they take him out for questioning. </p>
<p>He already knew a few words in Russian—<em>da</em> means <em>yes</em>, <em>nyet</em> means <em>no</em>.</p>
<p>But now he knows that <em>pozhaluysta</em> means <em>please</em>, <em>podozhdite</em> means <em>wait</em>, and <em>u menya yest' sem'ya</em> means <em>I have a family</em>. </p>
<p>"We all have family," says the man across the way, and shrugs. "Why should that make any great difference?"</p>
<p>"You're just one big ray of sunshine, huh?" Hopper asks him, and the other man laughs.</p>
<p>"You have family?" he asks, and jerks his chin towards Hopper's cell. "You have children, yes?"</p>
<p>He's not in the mood to play Twenty Questions with the absent-minded professor over there, so he scowls and turns away again.</p>
<p>He doesn't pace anymore.</p>
<p>His joints are all stiff from the cold and from everything else, and it's a waste of energy, continuing to pace.</p>
<p>Most of the time, he just sits.</p>
<p>Just sits and waits.</p>
<p>They don't ask him as many questions, these days.</p>
<p>Honestly, he figures it's just a matter of time before it's his turn down the stairs.</p>
<p>Kind of funny, right?</p>
<p>They're in Siberia, he knows that now, halfway around the globe from little old Hawkins, and they have the same exact monsters in Indiana as they do in the USSR.</p>
<p>That seems like it should be kind of funny.</p>
<p>Joyce would think it was funny.</p>
<p>El—</p>
<p>He doesn't want to think about that.</p>
<p><em>El's little brat of a boyfriend would think it was funny</em>, he thinks instead. <em>Punk better be still treating her right.</em></p>
<p>The guards stomp down the walkway, and he doesn't bother watching them approach.</p>
<p>Either they'll take him or they won't. </p>
<p>
  <em>Control the things you can. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Nothing you can do about the rest. </em>
</p>
<p>They don't take him.</p>
<p>One of the guards, the one who tried to make him jump on the first day, tries to open his door, but the other one says <em>nyet</em>, and then a few more words, and then <em>Amerikanskiy</em>.</p>
<p>
  <em>Not the American. </em>
</p>
<p>Well, thank God for that, he guesses.</p>
<p>They take the man in the next cell instead, and he screams and begs and offers them money, power, anything they want.</p>
<p>The guards drag him away, sobbing and grasping at empty air, and Hopper closes his eyes so he won't have to see the other man's face as he passes.</p>
<p>The screams grow quieter as they drag him down the stairs.</p>
<p>A pause, then more screams.</p>
<p>Then everything is silent.</p>
<p>Hopper breathes out.</p>
<p>God, he hates this place.</p>
<p>He's so cold.</p>
<p>He stands and walks over to the grate, leans his forehead against the bars, and stares at the floor.</p>
<p>"Hey, Ruskie," he says, and doesn't raise his voice. "You got any kids?"</p>
<p>He doesn't expect an answer. </p>
<p>Not really. </p>
<p>The man in the other cell takes his glasses off, polishes them on the hem of his ragged shirt.</p>
<p>"I have one daughter," he says, quiet and solemn. "Irina. She is in Moscow."</p>
<p>"Moscow, huh?" Hopper tries to imagine it, can only vaguely picture those onion-shaped church buildings.</p>
<p>Is that Moscow or St. Petersburg?</p>
<p>He doesn't remember.</p>
<p>"That a nice place?" he asks, even though he knows that he's being cruel.</p>
<p>"Yes," the other man says, after a pause. "Very nice."</p>
<p>Hopper nods.</p>
<p>"<em>Amerikanskiy</em>," the other man says. "You have children, too."</p>
<p>It isn't a question.</p>
<p>"El," he says. "She's back in Hawkins. Last I heard, anyhow."</p>
<p>Maybe Joyce left, after all.</p>
<p>Maybe El went with her.</p>
<p>"Hawkins," the man echoes, and it sounds as wrong in his accent as <em>Moscow</em> did in Hopper's. "This is nice place, too?"</p>
<p>"Nah," Hopper says. "Not really. But it's...safe. How old's your kid? Irina?"</p>
<p>The other man keeps polishing his glasses, rubbing dirt and grime across the cracked lenses.</p>
<p>Then, at last, he says, "Nine. When I...left."</p>
<p>"Christ," Hopper says, and the other man smiles without any real humor.</p>
<p>"And yours?" he asks. "El. She is how old?Hopper closes his eyes, presses his forehead against the cold metal bars that hold him up.</p>
<p>"Not old enough," he says.</p>
<p>The other man is quiet.</p>
<p>He keeps rubbing filth into his glasses, and Hopper keeps pushing his head into the bars, and everything is quiet.</p>
<p>There are other men in the cells around them, he knows, and maybe they're listening and maybe they're not.</p>
<p><em>Doesn't matter</em>, he thinks. <em>It doesn't really matter.</em></p>
<p>"Hey, Ruskie," he says, and rolls his head against the bars to see the other man watching him. "If they take you downstairs, go for the bastard's joints, you hear me?"</p>
<p>The other man puts his glasses back on.</p>
<p>"Joints," he echoes, and raises an eyebrow.</p>
<p>"Elbows, knees," Hopper says. "It's not invulnerable, and its limbs are too long. The thing's top-heavy, especially when it's on two legs."</p>
<p>"You have..." the other man hesitates. "You have seen this before?"</p>
<p>
  <em>An elevator, a tear in the world, El screaming beside him, bleeding from her nose and her ears and her eyes—</em>
</p>
<p>"Once or twice," he says. "They're not invulnerable. Kid back home beat half a dozen off with a baseball bat."</p>
<p>The other man stares at him through the broken glasses that he must have brought with him, all the way from Moscow.</p>
<p>Then he laughs out loud.</p>
<p>"Baseball bat," he says. "<em>Chertovski amerikantsy</em>."</p>
<p>"Yeah," Hopper says, and he can't help laughing a little, too, because it does sound fake, when you hear it out loud.</p>
<p>Then, because he's tired of <em>Amerikanskiy</em>, and he's tired of the cold and the pain in his chest, he says, "Hopper."</p>
<p>The other man studies him.</p>
<p>"Rozanov," he says, and Hopper nods.</p>
<p>The thirty-seventh day is the hardest. </p>
<p>It's the day he finally realizes that no one's coming to save him.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>He's twenty-seven years old, and he's sitting at the counter at Ronnie's Diner and thinking that Hawkins never felt so small before. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>In front of him, his coffee is cold. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>His coffee is cold, and the world is so loud around him, and all he wants to do is sit and be still, let everything rest and be quiet.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Someone drops a plate, and he jumps, starts to grab for a weapon he doesn't have, and then forces himself still again before anyone can notice.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There's movement in his peripheral, and then there's a little kid, no more than a foot tall, clambering up onto the stool next to him. He looks at the boy. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The boy looks back at him, without fear or expectation or anything else, and he almost lets himself smile. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Then the kid's mother is rushing over, scooping the kid up and telling him not to wander off, to stay where his mama can see him, and can't he see he's bothering the nice man? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>She looks up, and it's Joyce Sawyer, all over again.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Or no, wait, it isn't.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It's Joyce Byers. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jim, she says, and the kid in her arms squirms around to look between the two of them. You're back. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Just since yesterday, he says. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, she says. Oh. I'm glad you're. I mean. You're okay, right? You're. Okay. And everything? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Sure, he says. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He doesn't know if it's true or not. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He buys her a cup of coffee, and she buys the kid a cup of hot chocolate, and they sit side by side at the counter, and it feels like sneaking cigarettes under the bleachers, except for all the ways in which it doesn't.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>How's Lonnie? he asks, and she shrugs, fixes her son's collar so that it lies flat against his sweater. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Oh, you know, she says. He's Lonnie. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It isn't an answer. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Didn't really think you'd come back, she says, once the coffee is gone. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Thanks a lot, he says, and she rolls her eyes.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Not like that, she says. I just meant. There are lots of places in the world. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>There are. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He knows that now. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hawkins really is so small. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>I know, he says. Thought about seeing someplace else. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>So why not? she asks, and he knows she would go, if she could, pack up and go and leave and see the world. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>What's keeping you here? </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>He laughs. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Hell, he says. If I knew that, you think I'd still be here?</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The kid on her lap babbles something he doesn't understand, grabs for the cuff of his sleeve, and he lets him. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Jonathan, she says. Jonathan, sweetie, give Hopper his sleeve back. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It's alright, he says, and watches the kid's fat little fingers fiddle with the links on his watch, one after the other.  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>So you going to be in town a while? she asks.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Yeah, he says. At least for a while. </em>
</p>
<p><em>He's twenty-seven years old, and he wishes he knew how to lie to her</em>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The three-hundred-and-seventy-third day is the hardest.</p>
<p>Rozanov is gone now.</p>
<p>They opened his cell a few months back, tried to do the usual routine of hammering on the bars and shouting and driving him into a panic.</p>
<p>But the other man just calmly placed his glasses back on his nose, folded his jacket over his arm, and said, "So it's my turn now, is it?"</p>
<p>Hopper had shouted.</p>
<p>Shouted, cursed, wrenched on the bars and screamed at them to leave him alone, he has a daughter, dammit, what the hell did he ever do to them?</p>
<p>Rozanov had paused in the hallway.</p>
<p>"Joints," he said, and Hopper had nearly torn the bars off his cell in his desperate, futile rage. "Go for the bastard's joints, yes?"</p>
<p>He had a daughter.</p>
<p>He had a daughter, and a wife back in Moscow, and he was supposed to live, because Irina was only nine when he left, and she'd asked him to take her to see Paris.</p>
<p>There were no screams, when they took Rozanov down the stairs.</p>
<p>Hopper hopes he at least got in a few hits before the monster killed him.</p>
<p>For a while, he'd let himself hope that maybe Rozanov had managed to hurt the monster pretty bad, maybe even killed it.</p>
<p>As it is, he thinks he must have hurt it a little.</p>
<p>They waited a full week before they brought down its next meal.</p>
<p>But Rozanov is gone.</p>
<p>The monster is all that is left. </p>
<p>Well, that and Hopper.</p>
<p>He's going to live.</p>
<p>He's going to live, because he's going to see El and he's going to see Joyce, and he's going to kill the sons of bitches who ever thought they could lock him away in here for good.</p>
<p>It still hurts to think too long about El.</p>
<p>He tries not to do it too often.</p>
<p>Joyce is easier, in the way that she's always been easy to conjure up, to hold there in his mind and remember each expression. </p>
<p>So that's easier.</p>
<p>He can do that.</p>
<p>It's so cold in this place, but he hardly feels it anymore. </p>
<p>They only take him in for questioning once a week, these days.</p>
<p>He's practically got the whole thing memorized.</p>
<p>Today is no exception.</p>
<p>"Who do you work for?" the man in the uniform asks.</p>
<p>"Hawkins Police Department," he says, because they're all well past the point of pretending not to know that.</p>
<p>The man grits his teeth. "How did you know about the rift?"</p>
<p>Hopper breathes in and out through his teeth.</p>
<p>"My adopted daughter's friend picked up the transmission while trying to call his Mormon girlfriend on the radio."</p>
<p>The man hits him.</p>
<p>That's pretty right on cue, too.</p>
<p>Hopper sucks the blood from his split lip, thinks about doing something cliche like spitting it into the man's face.</p>
<p>No point.</p>
<p>Just a waste of perfectly good blood.</p>
<p><em>Next</em>, he thinks, <em>they'll ask you who sent you into the base. </em></p>
<p>"Who sent you into the base?" </p>
<p>Hopper feels himself grin.</p>
<p><em>My schoolyard crush</em>, he thinks. </p>
<p>"My adopted daughter's boyfriend's sister's boyfriend's mother, " he says, and they hit him a few more times, and he loses track after that.</p>
<p>By the time they throw him back in his cell, he's laughing without really knowing why, through a mouth that's torn and bleeding around the edges.</p>
<p>Sooner or later, he thinks, they'll realize he doesn't know a damn thing.</p>
<p>That's when it'll be his turn down the stairs.</p>
<p>As it turns out, that's not how it happens.</p>
<p>He's been there a little over a year, and he's done everything he could to stay alert, stay somewhat on top of things in terms of fitness.</p>
<p>And that's kind of funny, too, because that's not something he really worried about before, but now that it's not really all that important, it's all there is for him to do.</p>
<p><em>El,</em> he thinks. <em>El and Joyce and Hawkins and Ronnie's Diner and a cabin in the woods</em>.</p>
<p>He's struggling through a round of probably pretty pitiful-looking pushups when the guards throw his door open, grab him by the arms and haul him up off the floor.  He doesn't struggle. He thinks of Rozanov, of the way he raged and screamed while the other man walked so calmly down the stairs.</p>
<p>No one rages for him. </p>
<p>So he will go calmly.</p>
<p>He will go calmly, and he will act in a way that will make the folks back home proud, and all that kind of nonsense that they told him when he first shipped out.</p>
<p>Never put much stock in that before.</p>
<p>But he straightens his spine, steps out before they can start to drag him, thinks of the teeth and the claws and the spindly legs and exposed nerves along the joints—</p>
<p>They don't take him to the stairs.</p>
<p>They don't take him to the monster.</p>
<p>Instead, they take him outside.</p>
<p>It's his first breath of fresh air in more than a year, and it cuts him straight to the core.</p>
<p>"Keep moving," the guard says, harsh and cold as the godforsaken tundra where they stand.</p>
<p>He follows where they lead him, and they don't kill him.</p>
<p>Instead, they give him a shovel, and they put him to work.</p>
<p>
  <span>On the one hand, it's good to do something, good to have something to focus on other than how far he is from Hawkins and how long he's been trapped here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>On the other hand</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>On his third day building the rail line, one of the other men falls, just straight down, and flounders in the mud, trying to get back up. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A guard watches him for exactly fifteen seconds.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then he shoots the man in the back of the head and hands his shovel to the next poor schmuck that they drag out from the cells.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's still so cold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hopper just can't feel it anymore.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The three-hundred-and-seventy-third day is the hardest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It's the first time he thinks that dying might not be so bad.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He's sixteen years old, sitting under the bleachers—</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No, wait.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No, wait, he's done this one before.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He's under the bleachers with a cigarette between his fingers, and there's a couple arguing above his head, and he's been here before—</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>So this is where you go, someone says. When you go away in your head.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He turns, and there's a girl there.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He doesn't know her.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>(Yes, he does.)</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>No, he doesn't, he's only sixteen, and he just wants to get back to class.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Stop it, the girl says. Stop pretending you don't see me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He can't. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He can't look at her.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He looks at her, and he feels like an iron fist is closing around his chest.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I don't know you, he says. Don't make me know you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I thought you were dead, the girl says. We all thought you were dead, and I couldn't. I couldn't see you.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'm not dead, he says. Not yet.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>They're not under the bleachers anymore.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>And he's not sixteen anymore.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>You spend a lot of time there, the girl says, the girl with curly hair and a number on her arm. It was a good place to be?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He leans his head back against the chair, looks up at the patchwork roof of the cabin.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, he says. Yeah, it was a good place. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The girl nods, sits cross legged on the floor in front of the couch.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This was a good place, too, she says.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, he says again. Yeah, I think it really was.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Where are you now? she asks.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He closes his eyes.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>If he opens his eyes, he knows, he'll see the cold stone walls, the iron bars, the empty hallway beyond.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He can't risk bringing the girl with him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'm alive, he says.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>That's not an answer, she tells him.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Don't come looking for me.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Don't keep blocking me out.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He opens his eyes, and he's sitting at the counter in Ronnie's Diner, and there's a little kid sitting there next to him, and he doesn't want to be here, either, he's seen this already—</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>She still misses you, the girl says from his other side. Sometimes, she calls for you when she's sleeping.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He doesn't want to know that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He turns to look at the girl, and they're back in the cabin, and he can hear music from the old record player in the corner.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Where are you? the girl asks again, and he doesn't let her see.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It doesn't matter, he says. It's too far away.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Nowhere's too far away, she says. You know that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Blood drips from her nose, lands on the carpet without a sound.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I'll be fine, he lies. Don't you try anything stupid, you hear me?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Hopper, she says. Promise me you won't die.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He can't promise that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Of course he can't. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Promise, he says. Promise, El, I promise.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He is forty-two years old, alone in his cell, and the sight of her burns so brightly that he almost feels warm</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The work on the rail line is steady, dull and monotonous and without end.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hopper watches them kill four more men within a week.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He keeps his head down, and he keeps working.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>El</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>El and Joyce and Hawkins and home.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It sets up a rhythm in the back of his mind, in time with the clang of the shovels and the pickaxes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At night, he doesn't dream. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Didn't dream much before, to be honest, but he let his mind wander back through the years, to the people and places and times where he was happy.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The times where he was safe.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But he can't risk it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not anymore. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not when he knows someone might be listening.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some of the other inmates joke around, when the guards aren't listening, call him </span>
  <em>
    <span>cowboy</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>John Wayne</span>
  </em>
  <span> and laugh out loud when he says he's going to make it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't blame them.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And honestly, it's a step up from </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fat Rambo</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so he'll take it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Time passes.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He stops counting the days, and time keeps right on passing anyhow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Funny how that works.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Some days, he wonders where the rail line's headed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Other days, it's all he can do to just make it back to his cell without falling down. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He cannot fall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He </span>
  <em>
    <span>will not</span>
  </em>
  <span> fall.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn't dream, but his mind drifts as he stares off down the line, out over the frozen expanse.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(</span>
  <em>
    <span>He's sixteen and twenty-seven and thirty-eight and forty-two and every age in between</span>
  </em>
  <span>.)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One of the guards, the one who tried to make him jump on the first day, stops just outside his cell and bares his teeth in a snarl.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Amerkanskiy</span>
  </em>
  <span>," he says. "You are not dead yet."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Hopper snarls right back at him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>No</span>
  </em>
  <span>," he says in heavily accented Russian. "</span>
  <em>
    <span>Not just yet. Sorry to disappoint, pal</span>
  </em>
  <span>."</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The guard moves on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rail line keeps going.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He is forty-two years old, and they shave his head down to the scalp, because one of the other inmates has lice, and this is easier than keeping them clean.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's forty-three, and he </span>
  <em>
    <span>will not</span>
  </em>
  <span> fall, and the guards watch him with something bordering on an extremely reluctant respect.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He's forty-three, he thinks, and he realizes he hasn't had a cigarette in years.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>El will be glad,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thinks, and has to pause, catch his breath as the thought lances through his mind. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Always was saying you should quit</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>(</span>
  <em>
    <span>And he's sixteen years old with a cigarette between his fingers, and he's twenty-seven and nursing a hot cup of coffee, and he's forty-two and all alone in his cell, forty-three and gripping a shovel in cold, white fingers—</span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Joyce is sitting beside him beneath the bleachers, and Joyce is next to him at Ronnie's, and Joyce is nowhere to be seen<em>—</em></span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Wish you were here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks, even though he never does, would never swap places with her, not for a second. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Amerikanskiy</span>
  </em>
  <span>," the guard says, when he sits with his back pressed against the wall. "Why are you not dead yet?"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh, you know," he says, and he tips his head back, watches his breath curl out into the frozen air, and thinks about curly hair and a cabin in the woods. "Made a promise."</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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